562. Why Jesus Taught Two Covenants (Part 19): In Him – The New Ministry of the Spirit of God
562. Why Jesus Taught Two Covenants (Part 19): In Him – The New Ministry of the Spirit of God
Politics At Jesus’ Table
Jesus made room at his table for everyone, including those on opposite ends of thought. At Jesus’ table, everyone has a place and everyone is equal. I can imagine that the discussions that went on among his disciples were pretty lively at times, especially between two of them — Matthew, the tax collector and Simon, the zealot.
In Jesus’ time and country, a tax collector was a Jewish man who was working for the Roman government. They were looked upon with disdain by their fellow Jews. They were not included in the temple, nor were they guests of honor at anyone’s party. The tax collectors would basically bid for their job. They would tell Rome they could extract X amount of dollars in taxes. If the number pleased the Romans they got the job. However, many of them collected way more than their bid, which they ended up pocketing. They were extorting their fellow countryman for the sake of their oppressors.
Zealots, on the other end of the spectrum, were revolutionaries. They were the ones that wanted to take Israel back from Roman domination. They wanted their country back and they were willing to kill Romans to get it back. They believed in the sovereignty of Israel and were willing to lay down their lives for the cause. They hated the Romans and wanted them gone.
Jesus invites both of these men to his table and his team. I wish I could go back in time and see these two men interact with one another. It would be like putting the most conservative Republican on the same team with the most liberal Democrat. Jesus had some guts. And he made it work.
What this shows me is that it’s possible to disagree with someone and still work together, and *gasp* even be friends. Jesus’ instructed these guys to love one another as their commitment to him. He taught them to serve one another as he had served them. He taught them to love one another as he had loved them.
I am sure that it took a while for these two to get it but eventually, they did. Both had to give up their ideologies for a picture of a much bigger kingdom. Jesus wasn’t interested in the politics of his day. He was interested in establishing his kingdom. I think the same is true today.
Now, back to American politics. It really grieves me the way that the American Church is acting over politics. You would think that we were at war with one another split down a political line. I’ve read so many statements on Facebook about how you cannot be a Christian if you vote for Hilary Clinton. I’ve read about the same number of people stating there’s no way you can be a Christian and vote for Donald Trump.
My Christianity isn’t based on who I vote for . . . my Christianity is based upon whom I confess as Lord . . . and that is Christ.
You would think that during election time Christians somehow have managed to throw out the teachings of Jesus until after election day. Even then there will be doomsayers on whichever side loses. So many people are afraid the country is going to hell in a hand basket if either candidate gets elected. Folks, I have heard this rhetoric since I started voting.
If we truly believe that Jesus is Lord then stop your bellyaching, name-calling, mud-slinging and judging and start doing what he told us to do…prefer one another and love one another as he loved us, especially towards those that disagree with you.
In the end, our trust has to be in HIM and not a political party. Neither Trump or Clinton will be the savior of the United States. Neither one of them are, nor will be, the perfect candidate.
If Jesus can take two opposing men and bring them together, helping them understand there is a larger kingdom that we are to be concerned with, then don’t you think we should do the same?
My fellow Christians, please hear me . . . you are a Christ-follower first and foremost, an American second, and a member of a political party (or not) third. Don’t forget that order. Right now the people outside of the Church think we are a bunch of whiny cry-babies when we don’t get our way.
We are to be known for our love, not our political affiliation. If you want to immerse yourself in the political arena, then, by all means, go for it. Just remember who you represent! You represent Love (for God is love). Jesus taught his followers to love their enemies and to bless those that persecuted them. He said this to a group of people living under a hard and repressive regime.
At the end of the day, someone will win, and someone is going to lose. God will still be God 
and live will continue on. Will there be changes? Of course, hopefully for the betterment of everyone. Regardless of who is in the White House, we are called to pray for our leaders, submit to the governing authorities and do all we can to live in peace.
There’s a place for you at the table of Jesus. There’s also a place for the person who politically believes exactly opposite as you do.
Matthew and Simon learned the lessons of Jesus.
Will we? I sure hope so!
For a very interesting article on a greater kingdom perspective in this election, read Brian Zahnd’s article on How I Am Voting.
All Lives Do Not Matter
We’ve all seen the Facebook posts and the pictures flooding social media: Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter. All Lives Matter started after Black Lives Matter. It was, in my opinion, a way of saying that black lives do matter but not more so than any other life.
The question remains, though, do we really believe that all lives matter? We have a tendency to politize things, say things that we don’t mean and mean things that we don’t really say. Do ALL lives really matter?
Let’s think about this for a moment.
Do the lives of the homeless matter? If so, then why do we have so many? Why are they passed by and ignored? Why are they silently judged and condemned? Most of us would like to believe that they are homeless by choice. Some of them are. Some of them have chosen that life. However, there are many that have not. They need help but there is no help for them. I have been guilty of ignoring their plight. I have been guilty of not wanting to give money because I don’t know their full story (i.e. whether they are worthy of my money or not). The problem is: to ignore someone is to say that they don’t matter.
Do the lives of the elderly matter? If so, then why do so many of them languish in nursing homes without anyone coming to visit or check on them? So many have families that never visit or check on them. So they stay there alone, ignored, and despised, sometimes for simply not being able to take care of themselves. Some do not have family and just do not have anyone to care about them. Again, to ignore them is to say they don’t matter.
Do the lives of the unborn matter? If so, then why are they aborted? Oh, I know that many would argue they are not really a life because they have not entered the world yet. But here’s the hypocrisy of that argument: how is that a man can be charged with double homicide for killing a pregnant woman but a pregnant woman aborting her baby is exercising her choice? Doesn’t make much sense to me. If it’s not a living being then there is no double murder. If it is a living being then abortion is murder. I know this is a touchy, hotly debated issue but if we are going to say that all lives matter, then ALL lives have to matter.
Do the lives of convicts matter? If so, then why are they so harshly judged and condemned. “Well, they are getting what they deserve. Don’t commit a crime if you can’t do the time.” That’s the prevailing attitude. I am not saying that people who commit crimes should not be penalized. However, when does that penalty stop? I’ve seen too many men get out of prison after serving their time, paying their debt to society and still be treated like animals because they did something stupid. But, I guess their lives don’t matter as much as a non-criminal.
I still believe in the death penalty but I know of plenty of Christians that do not because of the argument that if you are going to be truly pro-life then you have to be pro-ALL-life including convicted murders. To these Christians, ALL life does matter.
Do the lives of the LGBT community matter? If so, then why are they so harshly judged by the Church? Why are they condemned and considered perverts and outcasts? Most would answer, “Well, the Bible says so!!!” Yes, the Bible does speak about homosexuality. It also addresses fornication, adultery, lying, gossip, hate, overeating and other sins that we like to ignore and overlook. Most likely because these are “our” sins that we don’t want to be convicted of. Just a thought.
Do the lives of Muslims matter? If so, why are so quick to judge all Muslims as terrorists? I know that there are terrorists that kill in the name of their god. I know that terrorism must be stopped. I am not certain that our quickness to kill can be considered Christ-like, especially when we consider the fact there have been thousands of innocent civilians killed in drone strikes. Oh well, they were just born in the wrong country, to the wrong family in the wrong religion. Their lives matters if they do what is right (according to me that is).
I hope that you get my point. I recognize that there will be valid arguments on each of these issues that need to be addressed. However, at the core of who I am as a Christian, I must love people like Jesus loved me. His death on the cross proved that my life matters. I believe that my life matters. I believe that the lives of those I love and care about matters. And, I must believe that those that are different from me, even my enemies that might want me dead, their lives matter too. They mattered to Jesus because He died for them as much as He died for me.
What I am saying is that unless we truly believe that ALL lives matter then we need top stop saying it. Personally, I contend that what we really believe is….all lives matter, just not equally.
The true test of whether we believe all lives matter is when we are faced with being offended or threatened. I can say that all lives matter, but if someone is trying to hurt my children then suddenly my children’s lives take precedence in that situation and their lives, to me, matter more. Most of us would agree with that. So, in that instance, all lives do not matter equally.
We must come face to face with our own hypocrisy, racism, and self-righteousness. We must learn to stop ignoring people that are different because to ignore them is to say they don’t matter. In my heart, I want to believe that ALL lives really do matter — equally. However, my actions, attitudes, and judgements don’t always reflect this.
We might believe that all lives matter, just not all lives matter equally.
I do know that to God all lives really do matter equally. He died to prove that.
Why is the Narrow Gate Hard to Enter?
What is the narrow gate? You probably know the answer to this question – the narrow gate is Jesus – but what does it mean to find the narrow gate, and why did Jesus say many would try to enter and fail? Make every effort to enter through the narrow gate, because many, I tell […]
You Were Born to be Loved!
Deep on the inside of every human being is the inherent need to be loved, to know that they have value and worth. No one can escape it nor deny it. Some people try to act all macho and tough as if they don’t need to be loved, or that they don’t need anybody, but it is not true. We all have the need to be loved, to know that we matter.
That inherent desire is hardwired into every single human being by our Creator. The Bible tells us that God is love. It also describes that God created man in His image and likeness. We were created out of love, to love and to be loved.
It’s been proven that babies need human contact. They need to be loved on. They need that one-on-one attention.
As children are growing up, they want to be loved by their parents. They want their parents to notice them. I cannot count how many times, as a parent, I have heard one of my children say, “hey Dad, watch me. Hey, Dad, did you see me do that? Hey, Dad, I can do this.” It’s all an attempt for me to pay attention to them, thus letting them know that they matter to me.
Teens, even though they certainly don’t act like it, want their parents’ approval, attention, and affection. They are testing their boundaries as they begin to spread their wings of independence. But they subconsciously want the safety of their parents’ boundaries. They want to know that if they fail, their parents will be there to catch them. Even the most rebellious teen wants someone to care about them.
That’s one reason why gangs are so attractive to some teens. The gang offers love, family, acceptance and a place to belong. Even though the love is misconstrued, the members feel loved.
As we mature, we look for a spouse to love and to love us. We then want to create children to love. Why do we have kids? We know that they are a lot of work, very costly, and there’s a definite possibility that they will rebel, not listen and could reject us. Yet, we continue to produce children because of the love that we want to give them, and receive from them.
We were born to be loved.
We were born to live in love.
We were born to love.
Love is at the core of our being because we were created in God’s image and He is love. I wish that we could say that we are love, but we cannot. Sin has distorted us, handicapped us, and made us inhumane to the point that we can utterly hate someone to the point of murder. Hate is so ugly.
Hate causes us to devalue someone’s life.
“winter” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by shioshvili, text added, flickr.com
Hate causes us to want to hurt them.
Hate can destroy us.
We were born to love, not to hate. We were born to be loved, not to be hated.
If we could only learn to receive God’s love, we would be changed. If we can wake up every day realizing that we were born to be loved by Him, it would make the biggest difference. I have been practicing that lately. Each morning as I lay in my bed before I get up, and each night before I go to sleep, I repeat to myself, “I was born to be loved.”
Of course, the thoughts of all that I do wrong come through my head, but I quickly silence them by reminding myself that God doesn’t love me on the basis of what I do. He loves me because of who He is.
That’s the beauty of loving others. I don’t have to love people based on what they do or don’t do. I can love them because I choose to. It’s hard sometimes because of people’s rejection and attitudes towards me. However, when I realize, and fully grasp, the fact that I was born to be loved and that I am loved immensely by the Father then I can reflect that love to others.
When I allow myself to be full of God’s love then I can give it away because I have a never ending supply.
As I realize how much He loves me and I look at others and realize that He loves them that much too, then should loving them be an issue for me? It shouldn’t be. It’s only when I let my personal judgments and critical thoughts about that person get in the way that I will stop loving them. When I see them as God sees them, I will love them. When I look at them through my human, imperfect eyes I may or may not love them.
My earthly love tends to be conditional, which really isn’t love at all. See my blog on Unconditional Love is an Oxymoron for a deeper discussion on this.
God’s love is unconditional because it’s based upon who He is rather than our actions. What if we did the same? What if we stopped looking at people’s actions as a basis for our love for them? What if we just looked at them and realized their number one purpose in life is to be loved and our number one purpose in life was to love them?
I think the world would be a better place.
You were born to be loved!
You Are the Fifth Gospel!
I love quotes, especially ones that stop me in my tracks and make me think. This is one of those quotes. I read it recently and it made me really think. It is a very powerful and true quote.
Most Americans today are not as familiar with the Bible as they were in generations past. In decades past, the Bible was revered, upheld with esteem and followed as a moral compass for society. These days it’s not the same. Many do not believe the Bible to be relevant for today. Most do not know the instructions that it contains, or if they do it’s based on Old Covenant Law and not New Covenant relationship. We live in a very Biblical illiterate society.
Many do not believe the Bible to be relevant for today. Most do not know the instructions that it contains, or if they do it’s based on Old Covenant Law and not New Covenant relationship. We live in a very Biblical illiterate society.
Many would say that it’s not politically correct (and it is not).
Many would deem it offensive (and it certainly can be).
On the flip side of this coin, there are many Christians who use the Bible as a weapon to beat people up, to condemn them and to make their own views seemingly valid. This is just as dangerous as not believing in the Bible, maybe more so.
The issue of this quote, though, is that most people will never read the Bible but they will read our lives. And that’s the way, I believe, that God wants it.
Jesus Himself said, “all men will know that you are My disciples by your love for one another.” I wonder how much love the world is seeing out of Jesus’ followers. I wonder how many of us would truly be considered disciples if there were a “love meter” somehow attached to us that all could read.
Our lives are Good News (gospel=good news). Our lives (our attitudes, ethics, words, actions, etc.) should reflect the goodness, love, and mercy of God. As followers of Christ, our lives should be the gospel that people are reading.
So, the question becomes what kind of news are they getting by reading our lives? Are they getting good news or a judgment order? Are they reading a love story or a condemnation of society?
As Christians, our life is the message of God to the world . . . at least in the eyes of the reader.
I know that at times I have been good news to those reading my life. Other times, well, I’ve been the bearer of bad news . . . for the reader, of course, but not for me. It’s the case of us vs. them. Usually, the “them” never get a happy ending.
I want my life to be the fifth gospel. I want my life to portray good news. I want my life to shout to the world that God is good, God is love and that He really wants to have a relationship with them.
If I can get them to see the Good News, God can take care of all the other stuff that we seem to be more interested in. It seems to me that we are so busy preaching against sin to the world that we have failed to just simply love. That’s not to say that we lower our standards but it is to say that I don’t have to defend God, the Bible or truth. My job is to love.
Jesus isn’t going to rate me on how much I had my doctrine sorted out and straight. Neither will the world, for that matter. What Jesus is looking at is how much love I am expressing. By this will all men know that you are my disciples…..by your love for one another. That’s the benchmark. That’s the litmus test.
As a Christian, I see too many of my fellow Christians passing out judgment like Halloween candy.
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When, in reality, Christians are not to pass judgment on the world, but the world can pass judgment on Christians. I wrote about this here.
Let’s reread the opening quote: “There are five Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian—but most people never read the first four.” ~Rodney ‘Gypsy’ Smith
What about your life? What are the people around you reading from your life? Are they getting an accurate picture of God or an inaccurate one? Would you be labeled a disciple by those reading your life or would they question your faith?
I want to be the fifth gospel.
Spiritual Stretch Marks
Stretch marks are unsightly. They occur on people who have either gained weight or on women during pregnancy because the body is gaining weight rapidly and the skin cannot keep up with the changes. They happen because the skin gets stretched due to growth. I don’t know anyone that likes them or even desires them.
Stretch marks represent growth. A body grows causing the skin to stretch and tug resulting in stretch marks. While it happens every day in the natural, it should be happening to us spiritually as well. If natural stretch marks represent growth, then spiritual stretch marks represent growth as well.
But in order to grow, we must be stretched. And that’s not always easy nor pleasant. But stretching is necessary if we are going to grow. I deeply believe that God is more interested in our growth of character than he is our comfort. And our growth of character is almost always painful. But it is necessary.
I want spiritual stretch marks. I want to have signs that I am being stretched and growing. Paul talked about the marks that he bore in his body because of the Gospel.
Galatians 6:17 “From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.”
I know that he is not talking about spiritual stretch marks. He is talking about being physically beaten and stoned. While I doubt that I will ever be persecuted for my faith to the extent that I am physically beaten, I can bear on my body the marks of Jesus in becoming more like him.
We should always be growing. But, there are seasons in our life where the growth is difficult. We fight the changes that God wants to bring into our life. We resist change. We don’t want to give up things that He is asking us to give up. We don’t want to deal with character issues or sins that we may not want to be getting rid of. We fight His dealings with us over holding unforgiveness and bitterness towards another person. As we go through these struggles our “spiritual skin” is stretched resulting in spiritual stretch marks.
While they are certainly unsightly in the natural, for me my spiritual stretch marks represent all the areas I have grown in. They are a reminder of how hard change was, how I was stretched uncomfortably and how that I did manage to grow through the difficulty.
I wish that change was easy. I admire bodybuilders that have worked with weights and exercise to form their bodies where their muscles are ripped and bulging. That will never be me because I don’t want to put in the work and effort required to do that. I want six pack abs but don’t have the desire, nor the motivation, to bring mine out of hiding. But even body builders get stretch marks. It’s because their muscles are growing faster than their skin. It’s a sign of growth.
So, my point is try to not struggle with the growth that God wants to bring into your life. The past couple of years has been a major season of growing for me. It’s been a period of lots of stretching, tugging, challenging growth. Some days I fought it, falling into the muck and mire of self-pity. Other days I was embracing the change and the growth. I am glad that God has me where I am right now. There is no way that I would want to go through everything that I have been through, but I wouldn’t trade my stretch marks for anything.
The good news is that stretch marks can go away. Naturally, you can use creams and lotions. I believe that in the spiritual the Lord also helps us to get rid of spiritual stretch marks by rubbing in His healing balm. They are simply a short term reminder of our growth.
I know that the Bible doesn’t talk about spiritual stretch marks. I have taken some dramatic license here to illustrate my point. For me, the season that I have been in has resulted in some serious spiritual growth and I feel the marks. In the natural, people tend to hide their stretch marks. I think we do the same spiritually. Sometimes when we are going through tests, trials and circumstances that God uses for our growth, we can feel shame and embarrassment because we don’t have it all together. We feel “less than” because we are struggling with doubts and fears. So, we tend to hide, isolating ourselves from others.
But we need each other. We are called to bear one another’s burdens. The spiritually strong are called to support the spiritually weak, without judgment or condemnation. We all need someone to help us through our growth season. We all need someone to be an encourager and a support. The stretching time in our life is usually hard and we need the support of others.
What about you? Has God been stretching you in your character, thinking, gifting or spiritual maturity? Do you have any “spiritual stretch marks” to show?
Three Consequences of Eating Forbidden Fruit
Have you ever wanted something that you were told you couldn’t have? For some reason, it always seems to make us want it even more. Some would call that human nature. But I wonder what it must have been like for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They didn’t have a fallen, sinful nature. But they faced a very real and dangerous temptation.
I know for me that when I can’t have something, it seems that I want it all the more. I am working on my eating habits right now. I have been told to cut out salt, processed and fried food along with decreasing my intake of sugar. The problem: I like all these things. To be told that I can’t have them makes them all the more desirable.
If you have ever fasted, you know what I am talking about. When you can’t have food, you are all the more tempted by that food. When a child is told not to do something, it seems they become hell-bent on doing what they cannot do.
I call this forbidden fruit! We want the forbidden fruit. It seems that forbidden fruit seems so sweet.
When we look at the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (TKGE), we can come away with three lessons applicable to our lives today.
They bought into the lie that God was holding back on them and that what they needed would be provided by eating the forbidden fruit.
You and I do the same thing today. We often times feel that God is withholding something from us. We feel as if we need something that God is not providing. Maybe it’s love from a partner, a sense of value or worth, or we don’t feel accepted. We end up going to other people and things instead of trusting God. We end up eating forbidden fruit.
It looks good and tasty. It looks like what we need and what we are looking for, but in the end, it never accomplishes what we thought it would. Just ask someone who has gotten hooked on drugs, or gave their body away because they simply wanted to be loved. Ask someone who has gone after forbidden fruit. Better yet, take a look at your own life and examine every time you ate forbidden fruit. What was the outcome?
They believed that there would be no consequences to their eating the forbidden fruit.
God told them that if they ever ate from the TKGE that they would die. The serpent deceived Eve into believing that God was simply threatening them with death, but they would not really die. She bought the lie and ate the fruit.
They ended up dying that day. Not physically, that would come many, many years later. But they died to themselves, they died to each other. In dying, they died. Adam was willing to throw all the blame on God and Eve. Eve rightfully pointed to the serpent, but she wasn’t willing to accept her own responsibility. The cost was way higher than Eve could have imagined.
There are always consequences to our choices. Some choices have great consequences. Others, not so great. The problem we run into is when we think that our choices don’t have consequences. We think that it will never happen to us, that we are above it somehow. We think that we can handle whatever may come.
But we can’t.
We still fall for that same lie: “you really won’t suffer if you make this choice.” God just wants you happy. How many times, when someone eats the forbidden fruit, they justify it by saying, “God knows my heart.” They don’t believe they will suffer consequences because, after all, God must know that they are good in heart.
Even though Jesus has forgiven us of our sins, our sin still has consequences. The wages of sin is still death. Most of the time we are punished by our sin, not for our sin. Eating forbidden fruit always has negative consequences. God can, and does, bring good out of our faulty mistakes, but our mistakes still carry consequences.
Eating the forbidden fruit caused Adam and Eve to experience shame.
Every time I have eaten forbidden fruit I have experienced shame. I hated myself for making such a stupid decision. I had to battle being ashamed of myself for messing up. Thankfully, Jesus is all about taking shame off of people, but our choices often times still bring us to a place of shame.
When we are ashamed we tend to avoid others, it causes us to hide from those closest to us and from God. That’s what Adam and Eve did. They covered themselves, in essence, hiding from one another, and they hid from God. We do the same whenever we deal with shame.
God had provided them with a garden that had everything they needed to sustain their lives. Every tree in the garden was good to look at and was good for food. God wanted to be their source of wisdom and knowledge.
Eve fell for the deception of the serpent. She thought God was being stingy, holding back from her something that she needed. She didn’t think that the consequences would be what God said they would be. In the end, she suffered greatly because she trusted more in the serpent and in her own decision making than she did in the wisdom and love of God.
When we eat from forbidden fruit the same happens to us. We tend to think that God is holding back from us the things we think we need. So, we go looking for them in all the wrong places. We don’t believe that there will be negative consequences to our actions. In the end, when we eat from forbidden fruit, we end suffering and, most of the time will cause others around us to suffer as well.
Don’t fall for the lie! God has all that you need and will be all that you need. He is not stingy or holding back. He loves you more than you know and is generous and gracious to humanity.
What about you? Have you ever thought you needed something that God wasn’t supplying? Did you eat forbidden fruit? What was your experience like?
Growing in Grace Together – Lucas Miles – Good God
A common question that people ask is, "Why does God allow bad things to happen?" Lucas shares some radical thoughts on this, including tackling the premise that God "allows" bad things to happen. Also, does God put sickness on people, or put them through problems and "trials," so that He can teach them a lesson or so He can then swoop in and "get the glory" for healing and helping?
It's amazing how many people think that God is like this, and Lucas does a great job at showing how the nature of God is always good, and that He never harms us.
To find out more about Lucas Miles, check out LucasMiles.org.
VIDEO Why Did God Create Mankind?
The post VIDEO Why Did God Create Mankind? appeared first on Forward Ministries.
Don’t Despise the Package!
Gifts come in all shapes and sizes. My family Christmas tree is full of gifts in different colored wrapping paper, bows and ribbon. Some are big and some are small. Each of my children hopes that the biggest one goes to them. For some reason, we often get excited thinking that the bigger the gift the better it will be.
Do you remember the greatest gift you ever received at Christmas time?
Christmas is celebrated by Christians as the birthdate of Jesus. We consider Him to be the greatest gift of all. We believe that He is the Son of God that miraculously became a human, born of a virgin. We believe that He died on a cross for the sins of mankind that we could be restored to a rightful relationship with our Father in Heaven.
Truly, He is a great gift.
You would think such greatness would come in a great package. When we want to give someone we love and cherish a special gift we will go to great lengths to pick out the right wrapping paper and the perfect bow. We might even set up the surroundings to make everything perfect for when they open that gift.
But, He didn’t come wrapped up in a great package.
He was born around smelly animals. Truly not a place for a king, let alone the God of the Universe.
He didn’t look like royalty. He was born to commoner parents. No regal robes, no silver or gold plated rattles. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.
His birth was made known by angels to shepherds and not to anyone else. He was born in a little, out of way town that didn’t have much significance.
His birth was low-key and was not something that you expect of a great King.
In other words, a gift came wrapped up in an unassuming package.
Throughout Jesus’ life, He was not received by many of His own. He didn’t come wrapped in the package they were expecting. They were expecting a mighty warrior King that would free them from Roman oppression. He came as the Suffering Servant. He did not look or act like they thought he should look or act.
They missed the gift because of the packaging.
Have you ever missed the gift of God because it didn’t come the way you thought it should? I have. I looked at the package (the person) and didn’t like what I saw so I was unable to receive the gift.
God wraps His gifts in the packaging of humanity.
He wants us to be able to see beyond the packaging. He wants us to see the gift inside.
The gifts under the tree are not really about the wrapping paper. It’s not even about the box that the gift comes packaged in. It’s the gift itself. It’s what is wrapped up in the paper and the box.
It’s the same with people. It’s not about what’s on the outside. It’s about the inside. Learn to look beyond the exterior to see the heart. This Christmas season, and throughout the coming year, learn to see beyond the exterior of every human being and see the gift that is on the inside.